NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A bodega owner was viciously beaten with a metal pipe in a suspected anti-Arab hate crime in Coney Island over the weekend, police said Tuesday.
A group of men attacked 58-year-old Jamal Sawaid inside his store at Mermaid Avenue and W. 19th Street on Saturday afternoon.
The NYPD said the assault was unprovoked and is being investigated by its Hate Crime Task Force.
The assailants entered Sawaid’s bodega around 2:20 p.m. and hurled anti-Arab slurs while striking his face and head repeatedly with a metal pipe, police said.
The men then fled the scene in a white pickup truck.
Video released by the NYPD on Tuesday shows the four suspects running down a sidewalk.
Sawaid was transported in stable condition to NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn.
Sawaid—a Yemeni immigrant who’s owned the store for over 20 years—told WABC that he thought the men were going to kill him.
"He hit me with a stick. More than one, more than three, more than four, more than five," Sawaid told the station.
He believes the assault was racially motivated given the insults directed at him and the fact he doesn’t even know his attackers.
"I never see them before," he said. "I don't have no problem with nobody. No problem with anyone in the community."
Former Assembly Member Mathylde Frontus was among the people who held a rally in Coney Island on Monday to denounce the attack and call for swift arrests in the case.
“We have to get the message out that if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us, and I’m asking law enforcement to please find these people,” Frontus said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
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